The PSOE and Junts negotiate to include the police officers indicted for the 1-O charges in the amnesty for the process

The key to the vault of this negotiation between the Socialists and the party of former president Carles Puigdemont is precisely this judicial shelving of the pending accounts of hundreds of defendants in the so-called process of Catalonia, which includes from the organization and holding of the illegal referendum on 1 October until the unilateral declaration of independence, going through the street riots.

Without wanting to offer details of the scope of that amnesty and without even accepting that term as valid, in the PSOE they do admit that this is the horizon of the conversations with those of Puigdemont. “It seems clear that Catalan society is clearly committed to the reunion and we will maintain consistency with what we have been doing. Dialogue is the method and the Constitution is the framework ”, Pedro Sánchez limited himself to answering questions from journalists about a possible amnesty in his appearance in Moncloa after the round of contacts with the king.

That door ajar that the acting President of the Government left is already translated into the talks between the PSOE and Junts that address the scope and terms of that amnesty. According to negotiating sources consulted by elDiario.es, this legal oblivion of the alleged crimes committed within the framework of the procés will also benefit the national police officers indicted for the charges at the polling stations on October 1, 2017.

The proposal to include the agents would have started from the socialist part of the negotiation but would already have the approval of those of Carles Puigdemont, who assume that when it comes to proceeding to amnesty a certain political conflict it cannot be addressed solely from a of the parts.

The inclusion of these agents of the State security forces would also help the Government of Pedro Sánchez when it comes to transferring to public opinion as a whole a measure of such political and judicial depth and that will surely have high doses of rejection, mainly by the more conservative sectors.

The proposal to include the police also has the support of the PSOE government partner. From Sumar, the former deputy and leader of En Comú, Jaume Asens, who was commissioned by Yolanda Díaz to establish contacts with Carles Puigdemont, expressly supported the inclusion of the agents in a recent interview in El País. “On the other side there are, for example, dozens of police officers accused of the 1-O charges. Normally amnesties affect all parties to the conflict. The limit is crimes against humanity and there were none, ”he said.

Diaz herself has also joined this thesis. In an interview on the first channel of RTVE, the acting vice president stated that the assumptions to benefit from a pardon law were multiple: “There are people who have placed ballot boxes, there are agents of the authority who are also prosecuted for different behaviors”, highlighted, to then highlight the “absolute constitutionality” of a law of this nature.

Police union organizations, such as JUPOL and SUP, reacted to this proposal by the Sumar leader to reject a measure that equates the agents on trial with the independentistas. “It is indecent that the Government of Spain tries to equate the police action with that of the criminals who participated in an attempted coup in Catalonia,” they criticized in JUPOL, a union close to the extreme right. From the SUP they also demanded that the Executive not use them “as a parapet to justify an amnesty for pro-independence politicians convicted of sedition or other crimes.”

About fifty police officers prosecuted for 1-O

When the six years of the events of October 2017 are about to expire, in the Catalan courts there are still two cases against agents for their actions during the voting day of October 1. The main one finished its investigation phase last January, after a complicated investigation by Judge Francisco Miralles, who ended up sending 45 national police officers to trial for their interventions against voters in schools, while filing the case against another 20.

In principle, the 45 agents are prosecuted for injuries, but the magistrate left the door open so that the injured could also present charges of torture or crimes against moral integrity. The Prosecutor’s Office requested in 2019 the filing of the case for all the agents investigated except for six uniformed officers, but the magistrate rejected it.

However, throughout five years of investigation, the instructor has not been able to determine if there was a direct order from the Ministry of the Interior, then in the hands of the PP, to act with violence in schools. None of the investigated agents, nor the police and political commanders who have testified, have allowed us to know when it was decided to act in the schools or why the charges stopped at noon

In parallel to this case, the magistrate has already prosecuted three other people, in a separate case: two police commanders and a shotgunner, the three accused of popping Roger Español’s eye out due to the impact of a rubber bullet. It was the most serious injury among the dozens caused by agents of the National Police and the Civil Guard that day. The judge also sat the victim on the bench for throwing a fence at the agents.

A debate, also within the independence movement

The possibility that the policemen who are under judicial investigation for their actions during those days were also included as beneficiaries of a possible amnesty has always entered into the debates around this initiative. Even in the initial proposal in which the pro-independence parties worked together with Òmnium, the possibility that the agents would also be exculpated was initially included, despite the fact that the proposal was finally dropped from the text that ended up reaching Congress.

Despite the fact that some pro-independence supporters have spoken out against it in recent days, the position of pardoning the police also had defenders among the secessionist ranks themselves when the debate began, in 2020. For example, the criminal law professor Joan Queralt, today an ERC senator, defended the possibility of introducing the agents among the beneficiaries, since the objective was to leave the counter at zero.

Several prestigious jurists have defended in recent weeks that an amnesty law could be constitutional, including Juan Antonio Xiol, former vice president of the Constitutional Court. Also in the pages of this newspaper, Juan Luís Requejo Pagés, one of the leading experts on the figure of amnesty, has expressed himself in this same line, who has also added that the norm must also contemplate the police. “In constitutional terms, the difference between those who have tried to end the State and those who have been able to exceed in their defense is so notable that it would be grotesque if only the latter were sanctioned,” the expert defended.